


Charitable Persons for Excellent Ends

by shirogiku



Series: Give Him A Blanket [1]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Angst, Forced Committing, Gen, Implied/Referenced Medical Torture, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institution, POV Original Character, Period-Typical Awfulness, Pre-Series, Thomas Never Changes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-06-03 09:59:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6606586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shirogiku/pseuds/shirogiku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Right Hon. Lady W.'s Visit to Bedlam.</p><p>(Or, what has become of Thomas's salons.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Charitable Persons for Excellent Ends

**Author's Note:**

> I never write tearjerkers, said the author, posting a tearjerker.
> 
> As far as I know, nobody from Thomas's salons was ever named (besides Peter Ashe), so I grabbed some random names from some high-society letters. All coincidences are coincidental.

* * *

_1706_

 

If there was anything that the Right Honourable Lady Katherine Wentworth could not abide by, it was a gap in her schedule. Thus, the Salons did not fade into the obscurity that they perhaps deserved, but rather move to her own parlour, where she did her best to dispel the thick whiff of scandal and return them to what they used to be like - pleasantly refreshing and _just_ this side of radical.

Lord W. had been meaning to sponsor a new literary and society journal, though these days, he mostly pretended not to hear a thing about it above the rustling of his daily news-sheets. Well, if a solo campaign it must be, then so be it. She invested handsomely in redecorating. She invited the best musicians; she mercilessly lured the Fellows of the Royal Society away from her rivals’ houses. Everything was as it should be - and yet, deny it as she might, a certain _je ne sais quoi_ was missing.

Over tea with Sarah, her young protégé, who possessed the kind of provincial charm that could not possibly be threatening to her own, Lady W. hinted at her discontent, in the subtlest of ways.

“Perhaps it is the ceiling, ma’am?” Sarah ventured, glancing up. “To be perfectly honest, those satyrs put me in the mind of some savage tribe about to descend upon us.”

“My God, what imagination you have.”

When pressed, Lord W. assured her that she was doing a splendid job, all things considered.

“What things, pray tell?” One had to wonder at these persistent foul moods. Perhaps a new sort of tea or a visit from the family physician was in order.

Richard had not been made MP for his tact - in fact, it must have been his flawless wigs - so he went straight from studious omission to bluntness:

“You should have damned well waited at least until the end of the Season. London does have a famously short memory, but some people… well, they leave a ripple or two.”

“Do we live in a pond, then?” Her spoon clattered against the fine china. “What _has_ it been like in Whitehall? Many a ripple as well?”

He thought about it. “We debate anything and everything _but_ piracy.”

“How long until the ripples die down, what do you think?”

“Oh, just wait until someone has to travel to the West Indies,” he quipped, with the dead certainty of a man who would always be spared that fate.

Seated behind her desk, Lady W. opened a drawer and took out a stack of letters bound together with a green ribbon. The colour had all but been ruined for her. Ridiculous!

In hindsight, she couldn’t say whether she had ever _liked_ Miranda in the first place. There had simply been too much of that woman, always. Sometimes, though, she would imagine what it must be like _,_ being someone like Miranda. She did not burn their old time correspondence, seeing as there was nothing incriminating in it - but neither would she ever re-read it again.

“Some charitable work might do us good,” she said during breakfast, on the next day. “Darling?” Richard made a noncommittal noise. “Do you remember Rawlison, the Oxford bibliophile? I hear he is soon to succeed his father as the Governor of Bethlem. They are both named Thomas, isn’t that droll?”

“What else would you expect from known Tories and Jacobites?” He disapproved of Bedlam’s Torysm immensely.

“Oh, fine, be like that!” _Her_ mind had already been made up.

Persons of quality were welcome visitors at the hospital - the Governors positively _courted_ them. The inscription on the poor’s box called her to ‘remember the poore Lunaticks’, but she was much too alarmed by the dog beside it for that, the creature growling at her and her companions as they gave it a wide berth. Half their old circle had followed her under one pretense or the other, and most of them rather flimsy.

“What _is_ that internal din?” cried a lady, covering her ears.

“The chains of vice and indulgence, I imagine,” replied Sir George.

“ _Literal_ chains?”

“Honestly, Elizabeth!” Lady W. whispered. “How can you be so naive?” She, for her part, was more inclined to protect her delicate nose, which she did.

“But our… that is, a _Hamilton_ in chains! How can it be allowed?”

Lady W. sighed. “I am sure he is quite harmless and well-behaved.” After all, there had to be a difference between obsessive championing for all the wrong causes and truly violent manias.

Sarah crossed herself; in an unspoken agreement, they steered clear of the women’s apartment.

Regretfully, they had missed the didactic demonstration of the day, but Dr. Tyson agreed to show them around.

“Moral care!" was his motto. “I treat _all_ of my patients civilly, and that civility is never completely in vain. Kindness may not seem like the most obvious route to recovery, but it can become a long-term investment. Where sedatives breed external conformity, a kind approach fosters improvement from within.” He sounded altogether _too_ pleased with himself, if you asked Lady W.

Her circle all exchanged glances. “Doctor, may I ask, have something in particular inspired your method?”

“Not ‘something’ but ‘someone’, my lady.” Dr. Tyson had such grand expectations of his melancholic gentleman. “I can’t think of a better testament to my theory.”

He, who was none other than their Thomas, was allowed the liberty of the gallery. Silhouetted in the light, he seemed more of a long grey brushstroke than a man, much changed without his wig and proper attire. But the moment he saw them, he broke into a beatific smile and addressed them as if they had only just parted. Dr. Tyson warned them not to overtax him, from a polite but hearing distance.

It was almost like having Thomas back, if you ignored the surroundings and the clamour. He gave Lady W. some invaluable advice on how to improve her initiative, _without_ bringing up any uncomfortable matters. He was such an angel, Thomas, and it was such a shame to see him so reduced by his senseless tragedy.

By her third visit, Lady W. had mustered the courage to come alone.

“Is there anything you need?” she asked him in an undertone.

Dr. Tyson had told her that Thomas was not to be given any books, excessive reading being one of the principal causes of his mental distress, but perhaps some other boon could be arranged for.

Thomas fell silent, making her worry about a potential _faux pas_. “I understand there have been precedents of patients being discharged at the request of their friends. Perhaps if you were to put in a good word for me with the…”

Catching Dr. Tyson’s look, Lady W. schooled her features back into a more neutral smile. “I’ll see what I can do.”

He nodded, studying his feet. “A blanket.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“A blanket would be wonderful to have again. My, uh, chamber grows so terribly cold at night.”

It should have been his _wife’s_ job. Lady W. blurted out: “That vile woman! What has she done to you?”

At once, Thomas’s smile flickered out, and what she saw in his eyes then made her flinch. It was nothing like betrayal, or that self-righteous indignation they were all so well-used to. It was utterly alien, a thing of books and plays: Despair, Fury, or even Madness with the capital ‘M’. She had just peered into a window to Hell, without him moving or making a sound.

He turned away from her and walked on.

She noted down his request in her diary, but somehow, between her inquiries for Richard’s parliamentary business and the new Italian opera, its edge of urgency soon dulled. She did contribute a generous sum to Dr. Tyson’s outstanding efforts, though.


End file.
